Les Furies rolls out the fun in story of small-town derby team, January 28

Visions Ouest screens raucous tale of women ousted from their Quebec rink and ready for revenge, at Alliance Française

Visions Ouest presents Les Furies at Alliance Française Vancouver on January 28 at 7 pm

LES FURIES IS every bit as raucous and irreverent as you’d expect from a movie about an underground roller-derby team.

Visions Ouest is screening the rowdy Quebec comedy at Alliance Française—telling a story of small-town Waterloo, where a semi-pro men’s hockey team has displaced amateur women’s leagues at the local arena. The revenge? Establishing a women’s roller-derby team as the ultimate act of resistance—and, it turns out, sisterhood.

In an offbeat touch, fired-up hockey player Mélissa (Gabrielle Côté) is helped by Yvette (beloved French-language broadcaster, singer, and actor France Castel), a former roller-derby champ who rides a mobility scooter, struggles with Alzheimer’s disease, and always seems to have a smoke hanging from her bottom lip. Elsewhere, Quebec comedy favourite Antoine Bertrand plays the rink manager who’s the unfortunate focus of Mélissa’s ire.

As the team puts on its helmets and mouthguards and gets rough-and-ready to roll, writer-director Mélanie Charbonneau builds a colourful, almost cartoon-like world—and she has a blast sending up sports-movie tropes. Feminism meets face plants as the unruly women get ready to take on a big-city team from Montreal—and don’t be surprised to find yourself cheering them along.

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Janet Smith

Janet Smith is founding partner and editorial director of Stir. She is an award-winning arts journalist who has spent more than two decades immersed in Vancouver’s dance, screen, design, theatre, music, opera, and gallery scenes. She sits on the Vancouver Film Critics’ Circle.

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